'There's no need to weaponise the bird flu,' the bioscientific expert in the movie says. 'The birds are doing that.'

In Steven Soderbergh's latest movie, Contagion, a Centres for Disease Control scientist is asked by the US Department of Homeland Security if the growing pandemic could be a new terrorist attack. 'No, sir, nature strikes back!'

I am your typical half-illiterate hack, but at least I know how to use spell-check. The people who run the city's most important film events just can't seem to get their heads around using this great invention of humanity, despite their multimillion-dollar budgets, mostly courtesy of taxpayers.

It's in black and white like a film from the 1940s. The actors talk and move as if they're in a '40s movie. Even the Warner Bros logo at the start is from a bygone era. But wait a minute - isn't that George Clooney, Tobey Maguire and Cate Blanchett up there on the screen? What gives?